I think religion is a bunch of hooey, and I think that the

“I think religion is a bunch of hooey, and I think that the holidays are an opportunity for people to get stressed out, getting their rush to shop. It's so conformist.” – Ricky Martin

In these fiery and unguarded words, Ricky Martin, the celebrated artist, speaks with the weary candor of one who has gazed upon the glittering surface of modern life and found it hollow. Beneath his blunt dismissal of religion and the frenzy of holiday culture, there lies a deeper yearning — the cry of a soul disillusioned by the emptiness of ritual without spirit, and by celebration without meaning. His tone is not one of malice, but of disappointment. For what was once sacred — the honoring of life, love, and divinity — has, in his eyes, been replaced by a feverish worship of commerce and conformity.

To call religion “a bunch of hooey” is not merely rebellion; it is a challenge to the hypocrisy that too often hides beneath the veil of sanctity. Ricky Martin speaks not against faith itself, but against the hollow shell that remains when faith loses its heart. Across ages, prophets, poets, and philosophers have risen to utter the same lament. The Hebrew prophets denounced empty sacrifices. Jesus himself overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple, crying out that a house of prayer had become a den of thieves. Martin’s words, though spoken in the language of the modern world, carry the same ancient outrage: that what should be holy has been cheapened by habit, and what should be joyous has been corrupted by excess.

When he speaks of the holidays as a time of stress and conformity, his lament becomes even more poignant. What was once meant as a celebration of gratitude, love, and unity has become, for many, a season of debt, anxiety, and exhaustion. The sacred fire of community has been replaced by the neon glare of the shopping mall. The joy of giving has been traded for the panic of keeping up. In this, Martin holds a mirror to the modern world, showing us that we have turned holy days into holidays — times not of renewal, but of performance. What should unite us now enslaves us to an endless cycle of comparison and consumption.

The ancients would have understood his frustration. In the temples of old, when offerings became mechanical and the heart grew cold, the wise withdrew into silence to find again the pulse of truth. Consider Siddhartha Gautama, the man who became the Buddha. Born into ritual and wealth, he abandoned both when he saw their futility. He sought not the pageantry of religion, but the essence of awakening. So too does Ricky Martin’s statement, stripped of its modern bluntness, carry the spirit of that same rebellion — the call to shed illusion and rediscover authenticity. To reject conformity, to refuse to play the part expected by society, is itself an act of spiritual courage.

And yet, his critique of conformism reaches beyond religion or holidays; it touches the heart of what it means to be human. For every age faces the same temptation — to trade individuality for acceptance, truth for comfort. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus warned that the crowd is often wrong, and that one must learn to stand apart to live rightly. “If you would be wise,” he said, “be willing to be laughed at.” So too does Ricky Martin stand as a modern voice of dissent, urging us not to lose ourselves in the noise of expectation. His frustration is not simply about holidays — it is about the cost of forgetting our freedom to live deliberately and authentically.

The lesson is this: do not mistake performance for purpose, nor ritual for meaning. If you celebrate, let your celebration be true — not dictated by advertisements or the judgment of others, but born from gratitude and love. If you believe, let your belief be living, not borrowed. And if you reject something, do so not out of bitterness, but out of the sacred duty to seek what is real. The world does not need more conformity; it needs souls who dare to awaken from the dream of the crowd.

So live with awareness. When the world rushes to buy, pause to breathe. When the season demands you perform, ask instead what your heart truly needs. And when you are told to worship what you do not love, have the courage to step aside — to find your own quiet temple within. For in rejecting what is false, as Ricky Martin did, you make space for what is eternal. And in that space — beyond religion, beyond conformity, beyond noise — you will find the living truth that no ritual, however grand, can imitate: the freedom to be wholly, consciously alive.